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Cendana Education Foundation (Cendana for short) was established in 1958 by some of Indonesian employees of PT Caltex Pacific Indonesia in Rumbai District. They wanted their children go to a local school, where they teach in Indonesian. Before 1958, all Caltex-employees' (local native or expatriate) children went to the American School, although there were no gap between expatriate kids and natives. Some parents got their children to school at SMA 1 Pekanbaru, the only high school in town, which is many kilometers apart from the Caltex operational district. Then, the parents decided to lobby the company to establish a new Indonesian Curriculum-based school. At first it was named Caltex Public School (Sekolah Rakyat Caltex), referring to the company name. It was 100 percent controlled by the company.

At first, SRC was given the Rumbai Plaza which had three classrooms, side-by-side with the American School. For the teachers, Caltex recruited three certified schools teachers from Pekanbaru, Jakarta and Padang with a status of Caltex employees: K.C. Laibahas, A. Zamzami, and Djohan Widjaja. The public school acts in the same level of Elementary School, which has six grades. With only three classrooms, they had to divide each room into two sections, First-Second Grade, Third-Fourth Grade, and Fifth-Sixth Grade.

In the early 1960s, the school was run by a subsidiary foundation called The Caltex Employee's Children Education Foundation (Yayasan Pendidikan Anak Pegawai Caltex or YPAPC) which was led by H. Boerhanoeddin St. Batoetah. It ran the Elementary School and also the newly established Indrapura Junior High. In 1969, for restructurisation, the YPAPC and Caltex Parents Foundation (Yayasan Persatuan Orang Tua Murid Caltex or YPOMC) established a new foundation, led by Djohan Widjaja, where it will run all of Caltex's Schools. The name Cendana was given. It was derived from an aromatic-well-known strong wood. The name Cendana also given because they won't have to change the already-popular abbreviations, such as YPOMC, SDC, SMPC, etc.